Mission Statement:

The Michigan Female Responsive Task Force is dedicated to ensuring that girls and young women in Michigan receive equitable services and resources to help them to reach their full potential.

Vision Statement:

The task force will provide leadership to the belief that there is value in supporting and affirming girls and young women to reach their maximum potential. Girls and young women in Michigan must become independent, educated, and healthy individuals in order to break the cycles of violence, dependency, marginalization, and poverty. To achieve our vision, we encourage development of a continuum of individualized, female responsive initiatives across Michigan that support the six domains of effective female development which include intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual, and familial/relational.

Values Statement:

Growth and Empowerment: Strong leadership and support from caregivers are essential to the development of self-esteem, self-sufficiency, and personal responsibility.

Understanding and Connecting: Understanding is expressed through tolerance for youthful mistakes, so girls can learn from their experiences without being labeled or stigmatized. Understanding also means recognizing and respecting issues of diversity by embracing individual differences. Connecting allows us to rise above our isolation and embrace our differences to work together to help girls.

Proactive: Identify and build on the individual strengths of girls and their families. We must be creative in developing solutions that intervene before damage is done.

Equitable Access: Ensure that individualized services meet the needs of girls by providing equal access to resources.

Goals:

Goal 1: Develop public awareness and commitment for female specific issues among policymakers, legislators, educators, and service providers in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Goal 2: Build community collaborations to provide local direction and support.

Goal 3: Generate a sustaining commitment to and financial support for gender responsive issues.

Goal 4: Create a continuum of individualized and empowering support for girls and young women.